Lacking aidos is a civic disease.
One of the common mistakes of the contemporary Catholic hierarchy is thinking one can teach by committee.
Few things seduce more effectively than the promise to change the world.
Suspension of judgment is teleological, and knowledge can be one of its ends.
philosophical inquiry in elenctic, aporetic, and aphoristic modes
The self-giving character of marriage is also self-forming.
the catholicity aspect ("space") and the apostolicity aspect ("time") of the sacrament
the sanctity aspect // "cause"
platonism, nominalism, etc., about argument-forms
objective traditionality vs meant traditionality
traditionality in mode of standing retention vs traditionality in mode of recollection vs traditionality in mode of reflective image
Sacred tradition is quasi-holographic in character; each part has reflections elsewhere.
Every present perception has a memorative and an anticipatory aspect.
introduction rules as an account of evidence; elimination rules as an account of use
The principle of charity in interpretation is a principle of evidence; sticking to the evidence is often the only way to be fair and reasonable, but this requires being open to evidence, rather than discounting it from the beginning. Thus charitable interpretation, to avoid prejudicial discounting of evidence. Treating someone as rational still allows, by evidence, the possibility of showing them wrong, confused, etc. Treating someone as irrational discounts evidence that could show them right or reasonable.
To learn a prayer is to pray.
Our interaction with the world is other-mind-ish; interacting with minds is our default stance, which we adapt to other things.
other minds & being able to think of oneself counterfactually
Life without parole is a kind of death sentence -- the difference between life without parole and what is called 'death' is just willingness to wait.
Every belief is also a normative evaluation of something as fit to be taken as true.
Ideas are not constitutive or regulative in themselves but as structuring this or that action or reason.
No quality capable of being measured in terms of both intensity and duration is such that intensity measures can be directly compared, much less added, to duration measures. An hour of travel cannot be added to instantaneous velocity. A minute of being hot cannot be added to absolute zero. And intensity of pleasure cannot be added to duration of pleasure, or even directly compared.
Pleasure does not come in discrete units but in layers, and while the layers are often distinguishable, they also bleed into each other.
acting in accordance with the principles suitable to one deciding on behalf of the whole Church
Kant links sublimity of maxims to independence of maxims from incentive G439 and sublimity of person to legislating moral law G440.
theory of value // theory of evidence
?: If A is evidence and it is true that when Z exists, A exists, then Z is also evidence.
evidentiality as binary modal operator (a is evidence of b) truthward fit
the exclusion of evidence vs the nonpossession of evidence
rank order for evidence (being more/less evidential of something)
evidence as value for belief
For every axiology, there is a corresponding theory of evidence.
All belief is belief that something is or is not.
the prior, the higher, the purer
Mercy is a directive virtue.
Treating potentiality as prior // treating the sensible as prior to the intelligible
values as concepts of practical reason
Each sacrament expresses an ecclesiology.
paraphyletic groups as artificial classifications suitable for building/converging on natural classifications
Loving your enemy is the essential princpile required for putting real good above political usefulness.
independence, continuation, and externality as issues arising with every measurement
number as that which allows naming without limit
+A+B A overlaps B
<+A+B> the overlap of A and B
+A+<+B+C> A overlaps the overlap of B and C
+A-B A overlaps nonB
patron saints and heroic language
gracefulness as bewgliche Shchönheit, movable beauty (Schiller) -- transient and can appear by chance
dignity approaching gracefulness: nobility; dignity approaching fearfulness: sublimity
"Just as bombast arises from the affectation of the sublime, preciosity arises from the affectation of the noble, and from affected grace comes fussiness and from affected dignity, ceremony and gravity." Schiller
The sublime is that which pleases by exceeding what can be seen. (But often this is by suggestion through what is seen.)
"atheism, conceptual of course, is only ever valid as far as the concept of 'God' that it mobilizes extends" Jean-Luc Marion
"Conceptual atheism becomes rigorous only by remaining regional."
The names of God are praising-names.
unum : memory :: verum : intellect :: bonum : will
goodness as incandescent truth
aliquid as the distinguishable
Human intellect is not intellect purely and in itself, but intellect in the sensible world of matter.
The theology of the Holy Spirit follows from the theology of the Father and the Son.
The rational response to grace is gratitude.
A description of the world at one time necessarily includes some description at other times.
All modern definitions of determinism entail that strict hard determinism, even if true, could only be known to be true by omniscience.
Things charm by the suggestion of beauty (which may or may not be their own).
For something to be an error, it must violate a norm that identifies rightness or correctness.
"rationality has at least four dimensions, intellectual, aesthetical, moral, and practical" James
(note similarity to Mill's Art of Life)
doxastic vs epistemic 'must'
"Moreover there are many cases in which it is our duty to act upon probabilities, although the evidence is not such as to justify present belief; because it is precisely by such action, and by observation of its fruits, that evidence is got which may justify future belief." Clifford
- Obviously raises two immediate questions: (1) If so, why can't belief sometimes be such an act upon probabilities? (2) If so, what of actions that require particular beliefs? James at least touches on both.
Clifford's spectroscope example seems clearly to concede one part of what James will argue -- that our 'passional natures' are involved in assessment of evidence.
Of any 'ethics of belief', ask how it is supposed to work with children. (Cp. Ward)
Clifford's argument in "The Ethics of Belief" seems to require a Knowledge Norm of Assertion, and to make any kind of deception an egregious moral wrong. (The moral argument Clifford gives transfers quite easily.)
central market, circuit market, and periodic market forms of law and justice
different kinds of analogical inference for different kinds of Diamond?
Infallible authority at any point in actual teaching can be (1) to truth as such; (2) to security or safety of position; (3) to suitability to either.
papal teaching by properly infallible authority vs papal teaching by universal ecclesiastical provision
respectful deference in conditions of doubt
Every theory of classification suggests a theory of concepts.
(1) To be a community both free and unified, ecclesial community must have some power of autonomy or legislation and of legitimate sanction, which is not subject to being overruled by other powers.
(2) Within a community, reasonable deference to law and sanction is loyal.
(3) Loyalty is a moral duty for those who belong to a community, where it may be had without violating natural or divine law.
Deference to spiritual authority is a case universal enough to fall under direction of natural law. It is confined to no age or clime, but universally obtains at all times and in all places where men live lives more exalted than the lives of beasts.
Ends excel means intrinsically; whether one thing excels another in other cases depends on ends in light of which something may be determined to excel.
Anderson suggests that the battle referred to in Charmides is Spartolas, not Potidaea, and thus that Socrates was in one of the early contingents.
Socrates on war
- it is kalon and agathon (Prot 359e)
- actions in it may be just (Gorg 468b-470b)
- life of commander second only to life of philosophers (Phaed 248a)
- art of war contributes to joyful life (Mem 11.1.19, IV.5.10)
- he doesn't discourage Xenophon from war as such (Anab 3.1.5)
- service in fleet is noble (Rep 396b, cp Laws 707a-c); cp land battles make bitter men in Laws 707c)
In Big Medicine, there is an ever-present danger of health care professionals being treated only as means; this danger is compounded in legislated health issues.
the personalist principle & humanitarian traditions
1) What has no contraries is both ingenerable and indestructible.
2) The world as a whole has no contrary from which it can be generated; it is therefore, as far as its nature is concerned, indestructible.
3) Angels have no substrate that can have contraries for generation and destruction; they are therefore neither generable nor destructible.
architecture and the suggestion of gracefulness
presentational vs representational art
presentational vs representational scholarship
holy and one: Creed
holy and apostolic: sacraments
holy and catholic: saints
At His Baptism, the Father acknowledges His Beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased. At the Transfiguration, the Father also acknowledges His Son. But on the Cross no acknowledgement comes, and the Son cries out in the anguish of it.
Sloppiness of detail is often a symptom of a lack of mercy toward others.
Success is a form of victory, not a form of pleasure.
People devote themselves to money for three reasons: to survive, to increase pleasure, and to win what they see as a sort of sport or game. Notably, it is the latter of these that creates the most intensive pursuit of money.
pleasure, success, friendship, truth
The more brilliant one is, the more thoroughly one can err -- no one takes the errors of a slug to be great errors.
natura daedala rerum
the at-your-service-ness of hope
"The acuity of genius is the acute use of acuity." Novalis
the sublimity-suggestive
A Platonic or philosophical myth is a syllogism of allusions.
"Humor is lyrical...." Kierkegaard
Mendlesohn's fantasy forms
(1) portal fantasy: involve a point of entry, from which the fantastic is reached and learned
(2) immersive fantasy: the fatastic is within the story just the ordinary, and we treat it as supposed for the story
(3) intrusion fantasy: the fantastic remains immune to discovery as it enters the ordinary
(5) liminal fantasy: the apparently ordinary on the edge of the fantastic -- within the story, the fantastic is ordinary and we are estranged from it as part of the story
(6) miscellaneous
-- really these should be seen as act-packages, sets of things one may do; a single work may blend them or nest them.
-- portal stories tend to be healing stories; immersive stories tend to be stories of the loss of the fantastic
The Lord of the Rings is a text on ascetic discipline: the quest to give up power in favor the good.
The terminus of divine acts of omnipotence in the world, taht to which they tend, is always Sabbath peace.
"Drink loosens the tongue. But it also opens the heart wide, and it is a vehicle instrumental to a moral quality, that is openheartedness." Kant
"Man is destined by his reason to live in a society of other people." Kant
credibility : truth :: gracefulness : beauty :: manners? : good
"error serves truth in spite of itself" Maritain
Satisfaction of what is owed is a necessary part of purification.
Hyperbole and idealization have one root.
